Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
0 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Cause of Civil War
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 7 of 193 (584035)
09-29-2010 9:20 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Artemis Entreri
09-29-2010 1:30 PM


Tennessee
Here's the speech of Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris calling for a referendum on a Tennessee Secession Convention
[indent][S]lave property rests upon the same basis, and is entitled to the same protection, as every other description of property; that the General Government has no power to circumscribe or confine it within any given boundary; to determine where it shall, or shall not exist, or in any manner to impair its value.
[...]
The attempt of the Northern people, through the instrumentality of the Federal Govermuent--their State governments, and emigrant aid societies--to confine this species of property
[slaves] within the limits of the present Southern States--to impair its value by constant agitation and refusal to deliver up the fugitive--to appropriate the whole of the Territories, which are the common property all the people of all the States, to the Southern man who is unwilling to live under a government which, may by law recognize the free negroe as his equal; "and in fine, to put the question where the Northern mind will rest in the belief of its ultimate extinction" is justly regarded by the people of the Southern States as a gross and palpable violation of the spirit and obvious meaning of the compact of Union--an impertinent intermeddling with their domestic affairs, destructive of fraternal feeling, ordinary comity, and well defined rights.[/indent]
The words "slave", "slavery", "slaveowner" etc appear 46 times in the speech.
So would Artemis or anyone else care to read between the lines and tell us the real causes of the secession of Tennessee. What were they fighting for? The right to use "y'all" as a second person plural pronoun unmolested?
Do tell.
Perhaps the following facts will shed some light on the subject:
Another factor in differing wartime allegiances involved slaveowning. It is to be expected that counties with little interest in slaveowning would have exhibited little support for secession. To measure this relationship, three categories of slave holding were developed: (1) Counties with at least one potential voter in four owning slaves included those areas where slavery was most entrenched, (2) Counties with between one in six and one in four potential voters owning slaves comprised areas of significant interest in slaveowning although to a lesser degree than in (1) above, and (3) Counties with fewer than one in six potential voters owning slaves encompassed the areas with least attachment to slavery.
In Tennessee, of the forty-four counties where the vote for secession was by at least a two to one margin, thirty were in the top two categories of slaveowning described.
--- James Copeland, "Secession and the Union in Tennessee and Kentucky: A Comparative Analysis", Border States: Journal of the Kentucky-Tennessee American Studies Association, No. 11 (1997)
Coincidence?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-29-2010 1:30 PM Artemis Entreri has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-30-2010 10:04 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 9 of 193 (584044)
09-29-2010 10:27 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Artemis Entreri
09-29-2010 1:30 PM


North Carolina
Here's a speech by John Ellis, the Governor who led North Carolina out of the union, accepting the Democratic Party's nomination to stand again for the office of Governor, in 1860 (he won, of course, which is why he was Governor when N.C. seceeded):
Such, gentlemen, are the parties to the contest. The issue between them should be clearly understood, especially here at the South. I assert, and shall maintain it with the proofs, that this issue is, whether African slavery shall be abolished here in the States, where it now exists? Let us not be deceived upon this point. Men may talk about our rights in the territories, but depend upon it they are not the questions now in issue. The abolition of slavery here at home is the design of our opponents. This is the bond that cements all the anti-slavery elements in one solid column against us.
So, Artemis, do tell. What was the issue between North and South, in the eyes of the Tarheel State, if it wasn't slavery? The Governor of North Carolina, the guy who led them out of the Union, thought it was slavery. But perhaps it was something else.
What?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-29-2010 1:30 PM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 10 of 193 (584048)
09-29-2010 10:47 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Artemis Entreri
09-29-2010 1:30 PM


Virginia
This has already been brought to the attention of Artemis, twice, but he has not yet deigned to notice it:
Resolved by the general assembly of Virginia [...] That these causes are to be mainly found in the denied equality of the rights of the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder, involved in the proposed partial exclusion of the former from the common territories--in the breach of the plighted faith of some of the non-slaveholding states and people, by acts and laws designed to obstruct the recovery of escaped slaves--by avowed designs to shape the policy, and use the machinery of the general government so as to effect, by indirection, the extinction of slavery, which it is conceded that government cannot rightfully or directly interfere with--and by other acts importing a denial of our rights of property in our slaves, and of our exclusive control over slavery as a domestic institution--and these are causes of complaint common to all the slaveholding people and states, and are in plain violation of the spirit and terms of our compact of union. --- Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia, for the Extra Session, 1861.
But that's just what Virginians thought that Virginians thought were the main causes liable "to involve the whole country in the calamities of war".
The question is, what does Artemis think that Virginians thought? He is, after all, himself a Virginian, though somewhat of a latecomer.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-29-2010 1:30 PM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 13 of 193 (584054)
09-29-2010 11:29 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Artemis Entreri
09-29-2010 3:38 PM


Arkansas
Here's a view from Albert Pike, Arkansas newspaper magnate and Confederate General:
No concessions would now satisfy (and none ought now to satisfy) the South but such as would amount to a surrender of the distinctive principles by which the Republican Party coheres, because none other or less would give the South peace and security. That Party would have to agree that in the view of the Constitution, slaves are property — that slavery might exist and should be legalized and protected in territory hereafter to be acquired to the southwest, and that Negroes and mulattoes cannot be citizens of the United States nor vote at general elections in the states.
In the words of Arkansas Governor Henry M. Rector, urging secession:
God, in His omnipotent wisdom ... created the cotton plant, the African Negro, and the lower Mississippi Valley, to clothe and feed the world, and a gallant race of men and women produced upon its soil to defend it and execute that decree.
So, Artemis, the actual issue was ... what? What "concessions" did Pike really want from the North? What supposedly divine "decree" except that "Negros" should pick cotton, did Gov. Rector really think that the "gallant race" of Arkansans were defending?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-29-2010 3:38 PM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 14 of 193 (584070)
09-30-2010 2:39 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Artemis Entreri
09-29-2010 1:30 PM


Confedetopia
The confederacy was not another union to fight against the previous union, but a collection of individual sovereign states.
It was another union --- that's why their Constitution was taken virtually line from line from that of the USA.
In his inaugural address, Jefferson Davis explicitly said:
We have changed the constituent parts, but not the system of government.
Was he mistaken?
The page linked to shows a line-by-line comparison, highlighting the differences. Apart from the bits about slavery, these are largely inconsequential. The most interesting are the introduction of the line-item veto (7.2) and of the provision that a bill could only be about one subject (9.20), both of which seem like ideas worth trying. But neither of these, nor anything else in their C&Ped Constitution, give credence to the idea that this wasn't "another union".
Of particular interest is clause 9.6, which empowers Congress to impose export taxes on member States, something explicitly forbidden in section 9 of the US Constitution. I fail to see how this makes the Confederate States more sovereign. Certainly it shows that this can't have been the guiding principle of the framers of the Confederate Constitution.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-29-2010 1:30 PM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 15 of 193 (584073)
09-30-2010 3:26 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Artemis Entreri
09-29-2010 1:30 PM


Kentucky
I'm not sure what Missouri and Kentucky are doing in your list --- you seem to be arguing about why they would have seceded if they did, which they didn't.
"Granted, John didn't kill his grandmother, but I tell you if he had, it wouldn't have been because he was motivated by the large sum of money she left him in his will. John just isn't the grasping or mercenary type, and he had no pressing financial needs ..."
Well then, that's probably why he didn't kill his grandmother.
In the same way, let us concede that slavery did not provide sufficient motivation for Missouri or Kentucky to secede --- which is probably why they didn't.
However, let's have a closer look at what they were thinking. Here's Gov. Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky addressing the State of Alabama through its Commissioner S.F. Hale:
The rights of African slavery in the United States and the relations of the Federal Government to it, as an institution in the States and Territories, most assuredly demand at this time explicit definition and final recognition by the North. The slave-holding States are now impelled by the very highest law of self-preservation to demand that this settlement should be concluded upon such a basis as shall not only conserve the institution in localities where it is now recognized, but secure its expansion, under no other restrictions than those which the laws of nature may throw around it.
[...]
It is true that as sovereign political communities the States must determine, each for itself, the grave issues now presented; and it may be that, when driven to the dire extremity of severing their relations with the Federal Government, formal, independent, separate State action will be proper and necessary. But resting, as do these political communities, upon a common social organization, constituting the sole object of attack and invasion, confronted by a common enemy, encompassed by a common peril--in a word, involved in one common cause, it does seem to me that the mode and manner of defense and redress should be determined in a full and free conference of all the Southern States, and that their mutual safety requires full co-oper-ation in carrying out the measures there agreed upon. The source whence oppression is now to be apprehended is an organized power, a political government in operation, to which resistance, though ultimately successful (and I do not for a moment question the issue), might be costly and destructive. We should look these facts in she face, nor close our eyes to what we may reasonably expect to encounter. I have therefore thought that a due regard to the opinions of all the slave-holding States would require that those measures which concern all alike and must ultimately involve all should be agreed upon in common convention and sustained by united action.
I have before expressed the belief and confidence, and do not now totally yield the hope, that if such a convention of delegates from the slave-holding States be assembled, and, after calm deliberation, present to the political party now holding the dominance of power in the Northern States and soon to assume the reins of national power, the firm alternative of ample guarantees to all our rights and security for future immunity or resistance, our just demands would be conceded and the Union be perpetuated stronger than before.
[...]
You ask the co-operation of the Southern States in order to redress our wrongs. So do we. You have no hope of a redress in the Union. We yet look hopefully to assurances that a powerful reaction is going on at the North. You seek a remedy in secession from the Union. We wish the united action of the slave States, assembled in convention within the Union.
To summarize:
* He says that the sole reason for the conflict is slavery.
* He says that Alabama is seceding in defense of slavery.
* He says that Kentucky is staying in the Union to fight for slavery through political means.
Was he wrong on any of these points?
Your call.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-29-2010 1:30 PM Artemis Entreri has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 165 by ruby01, posted 07-16-2012 2:36 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 25 of 193 (584178)
09-30-2010 5:37 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Artemis Entreri
09-30-2010 10:04 AM


Re: Tennessee
that speech was on January 7th 1861.
yet in feburary Tennessee voted to not set up a convention for sucession
He made another speech, you know.
In April, ten days after Lincoln's call for troops. Calling for the second and successful referendum on secession. You can read it here:
The President of the United States - elected according to the forms of the Constitution, but upon principles openly hostile to its provisions --having wantonly inaugurated an internecine war between the people of the slave and non-slave holding States, I have convened you again at the seat of Government ...
[...]
In the message which I addressed to you at your called session in January last, these things were somewhat elaborately referred to, as constituting, in my judgment, the amplest reason for considering ourselves in imminent danger, and as requiring such action on the part of the Legislature as would place the State in an attitude for defence, whenever the momentous crisis should be forced upon us; and, also, as presenting to the North the strongest argument for peace, and if possible, securing a reconstruction of the Union, thus already dissolved by the most authoritative, formal, and matured action of a portion of the slaveholding States.
[...]
Whatever grounds of hope may have been supposed to exist heretofore for an adjustment of the difficulties between the two sections of the Federal Union; however anxious we may have been to continue members of the same common family with the people of the North, such hope and expectation no longer exist in the mind of any rational man, who desires to maintain the honor and equality of the State, and the inviolability of her peculiar institutions.
But not a word about the route of march of the Union Army.
Everyone knows that TN was the last state to withdraw fromt he Union, that it was battling hard internally on BOTH sides, reasons for staying and reasons for leaving. And then Lincoln gave them no choice. When Lincoln called for 75,000 troops, the poeple in TN knew it was for only one thing, and that thing was invasion.
It is true that VA, NC, AR and TN did not leave the Union until it became clear that Lincoln was going to turn the dispute into a shooting war. The question is, what was the war about? And the answer seems plain enough.
why, because they knew the army was commong through TN to get to AL, and GA, and MS.
The army would have to come through lots of places. The question was, surely, what it would do when it got there. And the answer was: fight with their fellow slave-states over the issue of slavery.
"fight for our hearthstones and the security of home." oh shit isn't that supposed to say fight for our slaves? well it didn't.
Well done, you managed to find nine words in a row not explicitly referring to slavery. By the way, what's the primary source?
you do you think they just changed thier minds because of the slavery issue!?!
I think they changed their minds because there was going to be a war "because of the slavery issue". They had hoped there wouldn't be.
here is the real ordinace of sucession from June of 1861:
http://www.csawardept.com/documents/secession/TN/index.html
didn't really see anything about slaves in there.
And I don't see anything about troops marching through Tennessee in there.
In fact, I don't see any reasons in there, or in most of the ordinances of secession (perhaps in none of them, I'd have to check again). But certainly most of them give no reason whatsoever, so if historians were obliged to limit their knowledge of the causes of the Southern secession to the ordinances of secession they'd have to say that it happened for no reason at all.
---
The question is, what was the war about? And even if the people of Tennessee in particular were more concerned about soldiers passing through Tennessee than about their "peculiar institution" (and the evidence so far is for the latter and not the former) I should still have to conclude that the war was about slavery.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Artemis Entreri, posted 09-30-2010 10:04 AM Artemis Entreri has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by NoNukes, posted 10-01-2010 12:44 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 27 of 193 (584199)
09-30-2010 8:12 PM


The Cornerstone Speech
Let's hear from the Vice-President of the Confederate States, shall we?
The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.
Well, that's what he thought. But what would he know about it?
He continues:
Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
But I guess you've got to look a little more closely. You have to read between the lines. Let's look at that last paragraph again:
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
See?

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 29 of 193 (584228)
09-30-2010 10:44 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by NoNukes
09-30-2010 7:03 PM


Despicable?
Some apologist will concede that the secession at least was driven by slavery, but will insist that secession did not require war. That view, will still despicable, is at least supported by some evidence.
Despicable how? It is certainly true that the USA and CSA didn't have to resolve their differences by war. The USA wanted to, and however much we may sympathize with their goals, they didn't have to if they didn't want to.
Perhaps you could elaborate on your point.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by NoNukes, posted 09-30-2010 7:03 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 101 by NoNukes, posted 10-03-2010 9:37 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 35 of 193 (584246)
10-01-2010 12:01 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by Blue Jay
09-30-2010 11:05 PM


Re: It is very complex
So, I don't see that the lack of changes in the CSA Constitution is particularly informative.
It's relevant to claims such as that made by Artemis:
AE writes:
The confederacy was not another union to fight against the previous union, but a collection of individual sovereign states.
It was another union, modeled very closely on the USA.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by Blue Jay, posted 09-30-2010 11:05 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by Blue Jay, posted 10-01-2010 1:00 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 45 of 193 (584274)
10-01-2010 3:23 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by NoNukes
10-01-2010 12:44 AM


Re: Tennessee
Given the flip-flopping of the Tennesse voters between referendums one might well insist that Governor Harris was simply a hate filled racist with motives not representative of the TN voters. Harris likely did not much care why the voters gave him the result he wanted.
But this, if true, would only go to strengthen my point.
If he didn't care why the secessionists won the referendum, and if the real concerns of the Tennessee voters at the time of the second referendum was that Union soldiers would march through their lands on the way to the Lower South, then he could have played on that fear.
But he never even mentioned that. Instead, it was more stuff about "slaveholding states" and the "peculiar institution" and what he'd already said in January.
So if we suppose that he was a cynic trying to get secession by any means, then that hypothesis reinforces the view that what really animated the ordinary voters of Tennessee was slavery and not the route of march of the Union Army.
It only is if we suppose that he was a man of (bad) principle who would speak up for slavery whether or not it would be popular that we can suppose that in the second referendum the people of Tennessee might have really been concerned only about which roads the Union Army would march down rather than preserving their "peculiar institutions".
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by NoNukes, posted 10-01-2010 12:44 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by NoNukes, posted 10-01-2010 11:18 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 46 of 193 (584278)
10-01-2010 3:54 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by Blue Jay
10-01-2010 1:00 AM


Re: It is very complex
But, the perception is that the union was not a constitutional construct, but a cultural construct derived from a flawed interpretation of the Constitution.
They don't change the Bible when they disagree with how somebody else interprets it (usually): why should we expect them to change the Constitution?
I wouldn't. If you think you're arguing with me, you're not.
On the contrary, I see exactly why they had to make their Constitution a carbon-copy of that of the USA. To change it would be to throw away their arguments that they had always been in the right. For example, to put in a clause allowing for secession would have been to acknowledge that one was needful, which would be as much as to say that their secession from the USA was not lawful according to the constitution of the USA.
My only point was to disagree with Artemis. The CSA were not trying to establish a new kind of government in which there would be a radically different relation between the states and the federal government. On the contrary, as Jefferson Davis said: "We have changed the constituent parts, not the system of our government".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by Blue Jay, posted 10-01-2010 1:00 AM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Blue Jay, posted 10-01-2010 11:29 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 55 of 193 (584333)
10-01-2010 12:02 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by NoNukes
10-01-2010 11:18 AM


Re: Govenor Harris's Speech
Yes he could have. Perhaps he should have. But the fact remains that the TN voting results were dramatically different despite essentially the same pre referendum rhetoric from the governor. Doesn't that at least suggest that some other force other than the content of the governor's speech was in play.
I didn't suggest that the governor's speeches were particularly a causal factor in secession --- I just offered them up as evidence of what the secessionists were thinking at the time, namely that the dispute was about slavery, contrary to Artemis's apologiae.
Yes, there was a difference in the referenda, and yes, there was another force in play. Lincoln, by his call for troops, had signaled his intention to turn the dispute from a political schism into a shooting war. At that point both honor and interest dictated that the slaveholders of Tennessee should get off the fence and take a stand.
But Lincoln only changed the way that the dispute was being carried out --- with bullets rather than ballots --- he did not change what the dispute was about. It was still about slavery.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by NoNukes, posted 10-01-2010 11:18 AM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 62 of 193 (584348)
10-01-2010 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by NoNukes
10-01-2010 11:06 AM


Lincoln's position was that secession was illegal. Confederacy supporters believe otherwise. I've never seen anyone cite any portion of the Constitution as explicitly giving a right to secede. It simply isn't there.
Well, the Confederate view would be that there didn't need to be.
I agree: I think it has to be conceded that the South was legally in the right. After 150 years, there's no point in being partisan about this. The preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery were good things, but they were produced de jure belli --- by the "law of conquest".

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by NoNukes, posted 10-01-2010 11:06 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by NoNukes, posted 10-01-2010 3:40 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 67 of 193 (584362)
10-01-2010 1:15 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by Omnivorous
10-01-2010 12:08 PM


Along with citations of a long chain of abuses.
Which the seceding States also produced. True, all these "abuses" revolved around slavery, but they were perfectly real in their eyes.
A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union:
For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.
By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.
They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a 'higher law' than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.
They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.
They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.
They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.
They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.
They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.
They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.
And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.
In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.
The fact that it was all about slavery doesn't mean that it was all about nothing. The slaveholding states felt that they had been wronged. Only grant them their premise that slavery was perfectly right and proper and necessary and in accordance with the laws of God and Nature and also in the best interests of their "darkies" (God love 'em) and one can see their point of view.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Omnivorous, posted 10-01-2010 12:08 PM Omnivorous has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024